Everything Vanishes and Lives On
by Periphery
Summary: An item of sentimental value disappears . . . only to turn up 80 years later.  Second place in the Whodunit Teitho contest.


_Disclaimer: If it's Tolkein's, it ain't mine. As for the coat, I'm not sure if it's canon or fanon or something Cassia and Sio came up with, but in any case it's not mine either._

* * *

It wasn't the strangest mystery to cross King Elessar's desk that year – that honor belonged to a case in which potatoes began disappearing, then "falling" off rooftops onto innocent passersby – but it was singular in the level of person royal attention it received. On that particular morning the king read over a lengthy to-do list, sighed heavily, and added at the bottom, _investigate theft. _When everything else was complete (or nearly done, or at least considered), he began the inquiry himself.

The first witness – and this was unusual also – was his wife. "_No_," Arwen said in exasperation, "I have _not _seen that wretched overcoat since Tuesday night." She threaded a needle and added as an afterthought, "Why Tuesday? You remember when last you saw it?"

"Aye," Aragorn said patiently. "I went into the closet on Tuesday to retrieve the herbs for Eldarion's cough. The coat was there then. I went again this morning – "

"But the cough is gone, you assured me."

"To fetch _you_ a fresh towel," her husband continued, "and it was gone."

"But you brought me the towel," Arwen pointed out as brightly as possible. She laughed at the man's soulful glance and relented. "I went in there yesterday," she said, nodding at the closet in question, which was set into the far wall of their private sitting-room. "I don't recall seeing that rag, but I don't recall not seeing it either."

Aragorn gazed at his wife, adding her to a mental suspect list. Opportunity? Oh yes. Motive? More than anyone, for Arwen never hesitated to express her desire to burn his old patched ranger coat.

The children were duly examined; both daughters professed to know nothing, whereas Eldarion only remembered playing hide, on Wednesday morning, in the corner of the overcoat had been kept. He insisted that he had not moved it; it simply wasn't there.

All three went on the list as a group. Opportunity? Yes. Motive? A prank on Adar.

Arwen managed, with some difficulty, to dissuade her husband from inquiring of the servants or, worse, the Steward. Her maids would never move such a thing, she argued, and Aragorn was inclined to agree. He did, however, send a message to Ithilien to see whether the prince, who had left Minas Tirith scarcely a day after the last sighting of the coat, could shed any light on the matter. A week later the king received a wholly innocent reply, declaring that Legolas had neither seen nor heard anything of the overcoat during his entire visit.

Opportunity, yes, he ticked his friend off the list. Motive, none whatsoever.

Yes, Arwen was assuredly his chief suspect. Aragorn watched her closely for a week, waiting for her to crack, before potatoes drove the matter from his mind.

Occasionally in the ensuing years he thought of his old coat and resolved to confront his wife, but somehow never got up the nerve. Eventually the case of the disappearing overcoat became a good joke with which Eldarion wooed maidens.

Eighty-some years after the mystery began, it was solved.

* * *

Eldarion, who had inherited his mother's ears, heard the visitor first, in time to intercept Legolas at the door and warn him to be quiet; but Aragorn, eyes lit up upon seeing his friend, clearly needed no such coddling. "Legolas!" he cried happily, struggling to a sitting position.

Still in his traveling cloak and pack, Legolas crossed the bedchamber to embrace the king. "Your son is overprotective."

Aragorn laughed into his hair. "I feared you would not come in time," he whispered.

The elf closed his eyes and teased, "What happened to your faith in me?" He drew back and perched on the edge of the bed as Eldarion quietly slipped from the room. "I was going through one of the storage rooms a few days ago, " Legolas continued, "and what do you think I found?"

"Your dignity," Aragorn said promptly. "Why was the Prince of the Wood-Elves in a storage room?"

"Nay," the elf said, smiling in spite of himself. "My dignity was lost long ago, far from any room in Ithilien. What – ah – _physical_ item do you think I might have found?"

Aragorn pretended to think hard. "A crate," he said ponderously.

"A crate in a storage room? Strangely enough, I found several." Legolas gave it up and rummaged in his pack. "I also found _this_," he said with a flourish, drawing out a very old, very worn, very dusty leather overcoat.

Aragorn gaped at the coat and then at his friend. "You had it all this time?"

"Well," Legolas hedged, "I don't know about _all _this – "

"_You _stole it?"

"I do not steal," said the elf, insulted. "I borrowed it . . . for an extended time . . . but with every intention – "

He was cut off as Aragorn began swearing at him, so heartily and in so many languages that Legolas had to laugh. When the man finally wound down, Legolas handed him the coat and said, "I saved it for you. Arwen was about to burn it."

"She was always going to burn it."

"She really was this time, I swear it. She had enlisted the help of one of the maids, who let it slip."

"You always could charm the maids," Aragorn mused, though he had not stopped glaring. Absently he ran his hands over the neat patches on his overcoat, so long lost. "You brought it back," he said uncertainly.

"Well, the entire point was to keep it for you," Legolas said, in the tone of one reminding a small child that two and two make four. "Besides . . ." He looked down, fiddled with the catch on his pack. "I thought . . . perhaps . . . Arwen might want to keep it, now."

Aragorn thought of his beloved wife and her old quest to burn his overcoat. "No," he said firmly, startling Legolas into glancing up. "You took it . . . "

"Because I couldn't allow it to be destroyed – not it, and . . . everything."

The man understood – it was his coat, after all – that it stood for _everything_. "That is why it's yours now," he said quietly.

Legolas swallowed hard. "But . . . "

"Yours," Aragorn repeated. "Only the other day I was wishing I had it back to give you."

The elf ducked his head, pressing a hand to his face to hide his eyes. "If it's mine," he said at length, "I emphatically did _not _steal it."

* * *

_Am slightly depressed due to demotions and overactive fruit flies (don't ask). Reviews of any kind will be appreciated even more than usual. Thanks for reading!_


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